


The Supreme Vice

by iloveyoudie



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: A Study on Morse's Many Faults, Also a study in Max's faults, Angst and Feels, Bisexual Morse, Conversations, Drama, M/M, Miscommunication, Season/Series 07, but he loves him, max deserves better, problematic relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24002890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iloveyoudie/pseuds/iloveyoudie
Summary: Max dried his hands and deposited the towel off to the side as Morse finished looking through the photos of their victim. He didn’t like the tone in the detective’s voice lately or the passive aggressive insinuations that no one had done their job while he was away.
Relationships: Max DeBryn/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 57
Kudos: 52





	1. S P R I N G

Max dried his hands and deposited the towel off to the side as Morse finished looking through the photos of their victim. He didn’t like the tone in the detective’s voice lately or the passive aggressive insinuations that no one had done their job while he was away. 

It had been November the previous year when the pair of them, as well as the rest of the City Boys, faced off against McGiffyn and Jago and the brute squad. A week later he found himself waking up beside Morse, warm and content, Morse full of promises just like he always was when they fell into one of their liaisons - it was hardly the first time. Sometimes it was just a desperate physicality, them throwing themselves into an intense and hungry affair for a few weeks that never extended beyond them hot and heavy and needy. It was heady and urgent, at Max's house or Morse's flat, a backseat on a remote country road, and once even quick and desperate in his office with the shades drawn and the door locked. On one good run they had been together nearly a year, as close to dating as two men could do in modern society. Shared meals and sleeping over and nights spent in comfortable quiet. Picnics in the garden. Fingers on warm skin. Waking up together. Entwined in all the ways that mattered. But the one constant in all of it, was that it always ended - triggered by Morse’s ever-changing moods and very consistent unreliability for everything outside of work - and Max wasn’t sure why he always let him back in, why he always allowed it. The idea that Max could possibly be in love with such a man, that somewhere inside, behind his walls, Morse had crept in ever to stay, was something he didn’t like to consider. Morse was fickle and moody. Restless. He made terrible decisions, went too often with his gut when his gut was wrong, and chased desire like a fleeting dream. Morse’s eye was ever wandering and nothing he ever found was enough. Max wasn’t a runner, he would never give chase, so over and over he had no choice but to let him go, and to deny himself the bittersweet pang of missing him. 

But he also always came back. Maybe that was truly the crux of the thing. Maybe _that_ was the one true constant. 

“How was Italy?” Max untied his work apron, unwound it from his waist, and pulled it off from around his neck. Morse, he realized, had been watching him. 

The detective simply shrugged, a clear deflection, “Italian.” 

Max pursed his lips, “What was her name?” 

Morse cut one of his faces, that slight eye roll, the sneering curl of his lips, “Do you really want to know?” 

“No,” He did and he didn’t. It would be good to have honesty if Morse was going to keep coming back to him in the end, but Morse wasn’t even honest with himself, “But I do want you to know that I know.” 

Morse grouped the photos he held in his hand, flipped through them like playing cards, slid them back into the file, and crossed his arms defensively over his chest as he leaned against the gleaming stainless counter, “It could have been a he. Don’t you care?” 

Christ, he was exasperating, and as much as Max didn’t want to show his hand, he knew he couldn’t hide it from his face, “I care that you’re safe, Morse. Are you behaving safely?” 

“Tsk,” Morse sighed as if he were the one who was being put upon, “Don’t you trust me?” 

“Should I?” 

“Yes.” 

“Because you demonstrate your trustworthiness every time you go off on one of your adventures? Because the moment I asked you if you wanted to join me over the holidays you ran off to Venice?” 

Morse shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at his shoes, “That’s not what it was about. You could have come with me.” 

“You certainly didn’t ask me.” 

“Well, you were-” Morse’s head bobbled disingenuously on his shoulders, “-all caught up in your family plans and holiday get togethers and-” 

“And had I gone you would have…what? Not had your eye turned by something shinier, richer, slimmer, more...?” 

..more of the exact opposite of him. Max was rarely self deprecating but Morse did rather have a type and despite ending up back in Max’s bed - Max’s house - Max’s heart over and over and over, that type was not what the pathologist was. 

Morse’s mouth closed again. Max stepped close, took the file from the table, and moved towards his desk where it would be added to, signed off on, and then the proper forms would be handed off to Morse. The silence stretched as Max retrieved a pen and went about the work. 

“How _was_ your holiday?” Morse broke the quiet on his own. He was clearly trying to sound _normal_. 

“Lovely. Thank you for asking,” Max quirked an unconvincing small smile and glanced briefly over his shoulder, “I took an extra week in Scotland for myself.” 

He could already feel the tension across his shoulders and back. His gut swam with the anxiety of this lack of confrontation they were having. He wasn’t nervous, per say, but with Morse everything was on a razor’s edge. Always. One wrong move on either of their part and they could snap. 

“Did you catch anything?” Morse was looking at him through his lashes now, reluctant, trying to make an effort that Max wasn’t sure he wanted or needed. 

His fist curled up on his desk top and Max leaned on it as he turned and said, with the same deflection, “Yes. Fish.” 

And Morse’s face sagged, his lips turned down into a sad little line, and his eyes took on that damaged shadow that Max wasn’t in the mood to deal with right now. If Max’s evasive answer meant what Morse’s earlier one did, what did Morse think of that? Did it dawn on him that Max could sow his oats as well? How did he feel knowing that Max wasn’t needy for him? Was turnabout really fair play? 

Morse worried a lip between his teeth, then bit the end of a thumbnail, then pushed himself away from the counter and took a few steps closer, “Was there someone?’ 

“As if you’ve a right to it,” Max snorted, “Do you _really_ want to know?” 

Morse swallowed, then inhaled, and straightened. He’d made his mind up about something and it was likely that he was just done with this. The conversation had reached the peak of discomfort for them both, “No.” 

“No,” Max agreed, “Of course you don’t.” 

“Max-” 

There was a sound from the hall, a door banging and footsteps, and Max went back to his forms. He leaned over the desk and focused on marking everything out properly and adding his signature. The approaching sounds of another human being had interrupted whatever Morse was going to say. 

What had he been wanting to say? 

The mortuary door swung open and a nurse came in with clean linens and Max gave her a polite nod before he clipped the file back together and turned back to Morse. 

“Everything is there Sergeant,” He handed it over and stared at Morse unblinking, “Will there be anything else?” 

Morse accepted it, let his eyes run over the nurse in the corner, and then looked back at Max, “No. Thank you, doctor. I think that’s all.” 

And in moments, he was gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Working through some S7 feels...  
> I'm sure they will kiss by the end.
> 
> Set around the first episode, maybe even within that morgue scene there, but I'm not too strict.


	2. S U M M E R

Max watched Jim Strange’s car pull away on the sunny mid-morning hour and took a moment to stand under his roses with a cup of tea and give them a good look. After a ponder, he set the cup down just inside the front door and fetched a pair of shears he kept in a nearby hutch and returned to prune bits off here and there. It didn’t matter that he was in slippers and a dressing gown. It was a good methodical practice for a hungover brain still fuzzy and tired from a late night.

He certainly wasn’t expecting Morse to come walking up his drive looking like trouble.

“Morse,” Max paused. He wasn’t wearing a watch yet but he knew it was much too early for a normal social call. It had been business as usual between them for months, since their brief exchange of words during the spring. But like all the lingering hurts they drifted past and away. Morse certainly had his own life now, he’d made that rather obvious to everyone, so finding him on his doorstep on a weekend morning was a bit of a shock, especially with such an accusing expression on his face, “To what do I owe the pleasure? I’m afraid if it’s a murder I’m not on the rota and I’m not even out of my slippers.”

“Was that Jim Strange?” Morse’s brow was furrowed, his hand flipping towards the long gone car with the sort of terse agitation that Max was well familiar with.

“It was.”

“At,” Morse checked his watch, “eleven a.m. on a Saturday?”

Max could tell what this was now. He wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be, what Morse had intended when he’d left his own house to come round, but Max certainly wouldn’t stand for an interrogation on his doorstep at - as Morse had pointed out so clearly - eleven a.m. on a Saturday.

“What is this about, Morse? Or would you like to come inside and cross examine me in there? Unless I’ve committed some crime, I don’t think I owe you much of an explanation of my goings on at all.”

It had been months since Morse had paid him any more mind than he would a colleague or passing acquaintance. Yes, he’d stop round the morgue sometimes for their usual conversation, the sort that cemented them as friends of a sort - the sort that had similar interests that no one else was party to - but it was different than before. Last year Morse had been generous about sharing his life, even with his work troubles and displacement, with the overhanging dread of George Fancy’s death and the drugs ring. He was loose and free with telling Max his worries, his struggles finding a flat, and in the end even more than that, but now there was an invisible barricade between Morse and the world.

So, now what? He thought he’d just show up at Max’s abode on a week-end and throw some mild fit of jealousy because he had any sort of life? Because when he dropped by, likely because he _needed_ something, Max wasn't one hundred percent at his disposal in the way he was accustomed?

Morse said nothing. He pressed his fingers into his forehead, pushed his fringe back, smoothed his hair with that self conscious nervous tick he had, and when Max swept his arm dramatically towards the front door, he only hesitated a moment before he moved briskly inside.

Max waited until he was passed, a draft of aftershave and whiskey following him - 11 am on a Saturday indeed - and he sighed and murmured ‘Maybe later’ at his roses who he was still very much looking forward to giving some attention to. The clippers were set back inside, his tea picked back up, and with an annoying dread settling heavily inside of his chest, Max followed Morse inside.

Morse’s coat was already on a hook and by the sounds coming from the kitchen, he was helping himself to the hot water and a cuppa without invitation. Max knew that Morse’s mind didn’t work the same way that other people’s did. He had manners, to be sure, but it seemed that hospitality once offered, or comforts once kept, never really left him. Whatever their issues may be - may have been in the past - Morse’s intimate knowledge of his home and his comfort there hadn’t changed. He also suspected, and correctly, that Morse was snooping about his kitchen to find evidence of something unsavoury happening with Jim. What he would find were some teacups in the sink and a couple of empty bottles of wine by the back door and evidence, at the most, that some toast had been eaten recently and that the remains of a cake had been polished off. 

“By all means,” Max clipped in shallow annoyance, “Make yourself at home.” 

Morse blinked at him, a bit of sugar slipping from the spoon and into his tea as he looked up. It was clear that he hadn’t even thought that he would be intruding. He likely had worried about it for only a split second before the thought was dismissed, but here he was all the same.

They moved about in silence for a while, though Max would not quite call it comfortable. Morse made his tea and sat at the table and Max moved about tidying the mess left from he and Jim’s late night. He knew what it looked like to Morse, Morse likely assumed that any overnight visit meant some sort of scandalous affair because that was the way he handled his own life. It wasn’t Max’s job to dissuade him. He had nothing to justify. Morse would despise the truth as much as he did the torrid fantasy in his own mind, that Max and Jim had struck up a friendship in the void left by him. That both of them had grown to care for Morse, perhaps against their own judgement, and neither had been able to hold onto him, as a friend or otherwise. But also that since Morse and Thursday had spent most of this year in some sort of childish feud, that the people around them needed a break  _ from them _ . 

Max was only party to the bits of it he’d seen at crime scenes and in the morgue. Morse and Thursday each with something to prove, each of them looking to undermine the other in small ways with biting and backhanded commentary. Jim hadn’t yet reached the end of his rope but Max was sure he was headed there. They met up once a week for drinks. Venting. Friendship in the face of adversity perhaps. Strange at least could have a conversation about television or movies, about golf or fishing or cooking when the gossip failed. They certainly wouldn’t be waxing poetic about Housman, but they had found some common ground on which to build a functional friendship.

Strange was hardly the first policeman to show up at Max’s door, drink themselves silly, and need his guestroom for the night. 

Let Morse think what he wanted.

The silence held and Max eventually sat himself down with a fresh cuppa of his own, and as he took his first sip he could feel those blue eyes pinned on him from across the table. He met them and couldn’t, despite his mood, help a swirl of feeling. It was hard to ignore dozens of other mornings when they sat closer, when those eyes were less suspicious and guarded. Enamoured glances and rumpled shirts. Cheeky smiles and hands wandering over his knees and thighs under the table. Max wondered if Morse still felt it, if that’s why he came in like he owned the place, if he did actually care for him more than he let on under all the muddy complications of his own making.

Jim had told Max about the man he'd seen in Morse's house, Ludo. Some flashy sort with a bit of an accent, Strange had said. ‘Big smile like he had too many teeth for his mouth.’ Max wondered if it had anything to do with Morse’s italian from the new year. The woman. This new set certainly had to be what the wedge was, between Morse and the rest of them. Not unlike when he’d disappeared to Lake Silence and taken up with another posh crowd a handful of years ago. Max remembered how that one had ended...

What had he gotten into now?

"So," Max adjusted his glasses and watched Morse straighten, "Are you here to accuse me of something?"

“What?” Morse drew back a bit, lips twisting, “No.”

“You certainly look like you are,” Max sipped his tea again, “As much as you like to ignore how well we know one another at your own convenience, there’s a shade of betrayal in your eyes, Morse. Is it because of me or because of you?”

Morse said nothing. His gaze dropped to his tea and he stirred it again, an infuriating _tink tink tink_ against the inside of the ceramic that was striking Max’s mild hangover in just the wrong way. Had Morse even taken a sip yet or was he playing with it?

“The case then?” Max breathed in through his nose, grasping at the straws of his patience.

“Oh, _no_.” Morse exhaled with a bit force that time, the sort of genuine exasperation that was a relief within the confines of the rather one-sided conversation thus far. The Towpath Killer was the big word on everyone’s lips, the big clash between Morse and his governor, the major fumble of Thames Valley for months on end.

“Well you’ve come here for something.  _ Ogni cosa ha cagione, _ ” The italian was a bit of bait, yes, an accusation in it’s own sideways way, but why should he shrink from it if Morse wasn’t going to explain himself? 

It worked. Morse’s eyes darted to Max again sharpish, “I think I just wanted - I don’t know exactly what I wanted. I just didn’t want to be at home. People keep just showing up-” His face twisted and he rubbed his forehead, “Overcomplicating everything.”

“Oh? Inconvenient is it?” Max lifted his brows and cooly sipped his tea, “To have your home invaded?”

Morse swallowed visibly and his voice finally dropped it’s defensive edge, “Max, I’m sorry.”

“About this home invasion or everything else?”

Morse frowned as he finally picked up his tea to drink it. He had caught up to the speed that Max was running on, the specific pace of the conversation once it was rolling. His voice settled, less into defense, and more into that sort of smug and knowing tone he reserved for debates he thought he may win, “Since you’re so keen on how well we know one another, why don’t you tell me, Max?” 

“Alright,” Yes he could bite. Take the bait. If Morse wanted to fish - love and fishing, wasn’t it always? - he could provide a nibble, “I think you got yourself into something out of your control,” Max leaned back, loosened his dressing gown belt just a bit to accommodate, and wrapped his hand fully around his teacup, “I think if I hadn’t just had a visitor leave, with mysterious intentions-” Max wagged his fingers in a mild mockery through the air, “-you’d have probably tried something on with me. Because you communicate very poorly Morse, lets be honest. I don’t think you even planned that far ahead but it may have happened anyway, because with you it’s actions first and sussing out the rest later.”

Morse snorted in disbelief. No, maybe he hadn’t consciously planned on trying it on with Max today but, in the back of his mind, it was a possibility.

“You’re here because there’s comfort in the familiar,” Max sighed. Even though he knew he was right, or close to it, he realized that he would have probably fallen for it again. He would have given in, knowing that the intentions were wrong, knowing very well that he shouldn’t.

“And you know,” Max continued but found himself feeling, and sounding, more defeated the more he spoke, “I might have given in under different circumstances. If you hadn’t come up with slings and arrows. And if I didn’t know about the company you were keeping these days.”

Morse’s sarcastic smirks had stalled somewhere around point Max started looking tired and sounding like he’d lost, and then suddenly he simply looked pale.

“I always do it, don’t I Morse? Give in.” Max rubbed his eyes, glasses lifting on his hand as he did so. He wasn’t snapping back anymore. He was being genuine. Being true. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t fully awake or that he could feel a headache pounding gently behind his eyes. His eyes felt tired. Worn out. The sort of feeling you thought you might shake with a good cry. By God, when was the last time he’d cried? Years? He hadn’t even cried after being McGyffin’s punching bag.

Instead Max felt like a weight just sat in the middle of his chest, perhaps it was simply the sheer weight of Morse, his entirety. Always there, settled upon him, on his mind and on his heart. Strolling in and hanging his coat and making himself a cuppa without asking right in the core of him.

“Why do you, Max?” Morse asked with the first shred of unfiltered honesty of the day.

Max just let out a wry sort of huff, “You know why.”

He wouldn’t do this today. He wasn’t going to sit here and reassure this man, this foolhardy, egotistical, brilliant, careless, beautiful man, that he loved him still. That he probably always would because he’d been put through the gamut and had all his walls shattered to bits by him, been taken advantage of and still, to this very minute, barely minded it all in the grand scheme of things. You couldn’t feel wholly betrayed when you knew you never wholly had someone in the first place. 

Morse was Morse. He would never change and neither would Max, but that didn’t mean that at this very moment he had to appease him with a love confession or be any less annoyed. 

He was more annoyed he’d been taken from his roses at this point, because of Morse’s life drama that he wouldn’t even share. 

“You don’t have to tell me about whatever you’ve got brewing,” Max finally set his tea cup down empty and let out a yawn, “When I told you before that all I was concerned about was that you were being safe? I meant that Morse.”

Max pushed himself up from the table.

“I think I’m in the middle of a mess, Max.”

“Aren’t you always, old chap?”

Max rounded the table and approached Morse. He wanted nothing more than to put his hand through Morse’s hair, soothe him in a way he knew worked, had Morse close his eyes and lean his head against him in the way he always did, content to be placid and peaceful for just a moment. Instead, Max put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, “And if you need to be here to hide or gather your thoughts, so be it. You know where everything is. Have a nap - drink yourself silly - keep the music to a reasonable volume and please go see that cat you started feeding because I think lives in the garden now.”

Morse’s head fell and he exhaled, “Thank you, Max.” 

“Don’t thank me, Morse. You don’t possess an adequate vocabulary to thank me enough for all I do for you. But I know you won’t stop as well as I know I’ll always let you in. This is you. I don’t think you would know how to stop, actually. So, as I go and excuse myself to take a couple of tablets and prune my roses, you can make yourself comfortable and simply digest the realization that my life does not, and will not, stop for you.”

He squeezed his shoulder one more time and let him go, off to fetch a painkiller and the clippers, full in the knowledge that Morse  _ would _ stay and spend the day and even if it rubbed him wrong in some ways - and that anyone with half a brain would say he was being taken advantage of yet again - Max knew that he allowed it because it was nicer to have Morse here likely never sharing his woes, drifting about his home like some sort of beautiful sorrowful spectre, than it was to have him off god knows where doing god knows what and likely getting himself killed. 

Maybe he’d share. Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he'd apologize or maybe they would talk about the news and politics and have a laugh at a stupid television show for an hour.

In peace or in strife, if Morse was here, he was safe.


	3. C H R I S T M A S

Max didn’t much believe in miracles. He was a man of science and knew that everything, even if the factors were unknown, had an explainable cause and effect. That didn’t stop him from being charmed by matters of circumstance, that is to say when the proverbial stars aligned and it resulted in a near magical effect.

He could hardly turn his nose up at a white Christmas.

Max had taken the whole week for the holiday, he usually did if he could, and his eldest sister and her family came to stay for most of it. He wasn’t overly fond of having a full house but it was nice to have company when some of the seasonal doldrums hit and the family stay usually lasted through Christmas and Boxing Day before they made their way back home at their convenience before the New Year.

It had been pleasant enough, good meals and company and gift exchanges, a concert at one of the colleges and then, of course, the snow. It always made Oxford just a bit dreamier and his garden just a bit more lovely to be blanketed in white, but like most lovely things the winter wonderland was fleeting and gone within a day, and with it the magic. As the holiday allure wore off, the visitation also wound to an end, and his family now bustled about the cottage packing their things so they could hit the road in the early morning hours.

This particular chaotic afternoon was disrupted by a knock at the door.

It wasn’t exactly unusual. Salesmen were capitalizing on the knowledge that people were cooped up at home for the holidays, staying in because of the weather, and the churches and charities were also looking to prey upon everyone’s seasonal goodwill.

Max opened the front door just as his niece darted past him in the hall, nearly bowling him over, and he had half a smile on as he tugged his waistcoat back into place and prepared to turn away whoever was looking for a bit of his charity. He’d already paid his dues for the season.

Except it was Morse.

A distant voice in his mind told him that he'd paid Morse plenty of his due as well, and then another voice of conscience piped up that he was being unfair. It had been months since the last time Morse had shadowed his doorstep or come looking for vague and aimless comforts.

He was looking very neat and put together. Awake and aware. No alcohol fumes. No dark circles under his eyes. Just bundled in his greatcoat, with a tasteful scarf and a pair of gloves, and he was carrying a leather travel bag.

Max couldn’t help admiring him in the clean winter light but that too was kept in the back of his mind with the forbidden trains of thought. His eyes, always so very very blue, were striking, and the slight smile that tugged Morse’s lips almost looked like he was happy to see him.

“Morse,” Max blinked, “Happy Holidays.”

Morse’s smile spread quickly, as if he’d forgotten somehow that it was the holidays, and the greeting was a surprise, “Happy Holidays, Max.”

“I’m afraid its a bit of a whirlwind here today-”

Margaret could be heard yelling from the sitting room asking her mum if she knew where her burgundy cardigan with the pearl buttons was. Another yell came from upstairs in response and Max held up a finger to Morse, stepped back in, and hollered, “In the kitchen, Margaret!”

A ‘Thanks Uncle Max!’ came in response.

Max sighed and adjusted his glasses, “She’ll lose it again by the time they leave tomorrow morning. You’re welcome to come in.”

“No. I don't want to intrude,” Morse lifted a hand and waved a light dismissal, “But I wondered if we could talk?”

Max bounced idly on his feet in a moment of thought, more about privacy than dissent, before he nodded and fetched his coat from the hook, “Let’s walk round to the garden.”

Morse set his bag down under the trellis as Max pulled on his coat and closed the front door behind him. They started to walk, elbow to elbow, and fell seamlessly in step.

“Going somewhere?” Max wasn’t as up to date on the gossip since Jim Strange ended up in hospital and the holidays ran their course, but things had come to a bit of a head by the end of the Towpath case and even Max had lost his patience with Morse and Thursday’s feud. Morse had been all apologies since, when they were in the same company, but he had even more completely disappeared into his own world since he’d last been to the house in the summer.

“Yes,” Morse’s hands sunk into his coat pockets, “I need to take care of something. Tie up loose ends.”

They reached the gate and Max unlatched it, holding it open for Morse to pass through first.

“Cleaning up my mess,” Morse continued with finality.

Max watched his back as Morse strolled further along ahead of him when he paused to close the gate behind them. Morse had some sort of renewed vigor, the steel in his spine and determination tight in his jaw that told Max that he was on some sort of mission of which no one could turn him away from. But there was also a nervous energy, that way he paced and fiddled, the way Max could almost hear his mind spinning in that pretty little head of his.

He was impressive when he was set like this, but also terrifying, and with every step Morse took further into the garden Max felt the smallest hint of dread. It wasn’t because Morse wasn’t driven or capable, but he was often unprepared for danger even when he thought he was. He often underestimated people, held idealistic visions of how the world worked, and that was always what got him in trouble in the end.

The garden was different in the winter, quiet, like it was sleeping, only dotted by spots of green where ivy curled through the beds or up against the house. It looked rather naked when compared to the spring and summer, with even the vegetable beds now long emptied. Most everything was cut back, some protected against the harsher frosts with bagged coverings, and others were taken inside to winter and to crowd his windowsills.

Morse walked as far as the stone border, usually hidden under wild grasses and springy delicate ground cover, and he stopped to look out over all of it a moment.

“To say I’ve been difficult this year is an understatement,” Morse finally said. He turned to face Max, his face creased with delicate care, “I owe a lot of people apologies for how I’ve behaved, but you above everyone.”

Max couldn’t help a sigh, a sort of beleaguered thing, because this wasn’t the first apology Morse had given him and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last. Sometimes he hoped they may just ignore the practice all together because at some point, the frequency of repeat offense simply became tiring.

Morse frowned at that reaction and looked behind Max at the house, as if there may be observers, and finding none, back to Max himself, “I know. _I know._ ”

There was some sort of despair in his tone, a finality, and even with his exasperation the dread in Max’s gut grew.

“I haven’t been safe, Max. Not a bit,” His voice had dropped, “And I’ve abused everyone’s friendship and trust for my own ends, to maintain some sort of allure for myself. I don’t know. I always think I’ll find that fairy tale whirlwind and-”

“And then you find that fairy tales aren’t real?”

Morse frowned, “Wild things run wild. Exotic things always remain alien. Dangerous things-”

“-feed on danger.” Max finished his sentence.

“You know better than anyone, don’t you?” Morse stepped closer to him.

“I suppose I do,” Max sighed, “But you’ve always known that as well. Time and time again, Morse. You’ve seen that as much things change they always stay the same. It’s admirable, really, to try so hard to change so much of the world and people around you. To try and change yourself..”

But Morse would always be Morse. Ever seeking. Needing to find something more meaningful in everything he did. Trying to find beauty always in the darkness. But Max also never changed, never moved, never chased, never fought until he was backed into a very literal corner. _My good opinion once lost, is lost forever._ But wasn't the opposite also true? His affection once gained-

Sometimes the beauty didn’t need to be found. Sometimes you just needed to stand still, look around, and see what was there. Some beauty you could make from nothing. Like a garden. Like a home. Sometimes you just had to accept when you didn’t have the strength to be any more than yourself.

“But some things aren’t broken, are they? They don’t need fixing. They don’t need the weaknesses pointed at and plucked and pulled and mysteries unravelled or explained,” Morse sighed, one of those full body exasperations that moved his shoulders and cast his head back. His breath came out in a puff upwards into the winter sky, “I was never taught to see it, the good I have in my life already. Maybe my mother tried once but-”

Max didn’t know what to say, or more that Morse didn’t seem like he was finished. His annoyance at the apology had disappeared and the dread still remained, but everything else crept back in now. His want to comfort this man, to help him understand it all if he let him, to take him in his arms and bundle him into the house and tell him that it was alright and it all would work itself out in the end and that even he could find happiness just where he was. Kiss him on the head and escape the chill...

But that was Max’s failing, because Morse wasn’t the only one who had a hard time getting past their own unreasonable emotions or stopping the instincts that got him hurt in the end. He was just better at dealing with it. He was better at utilizing his own stubbornness and owning his eccentricity. He was better at compartmentalizing the loss of a ‘normal’ life, and understanding that his was one that would never ever get the true fulfillment that others would.

Books. Science. Music. Facts and figures. Quotations. All of it a breeze. Fishing was just angles and patience. Gardening just determination and attention. Baking was just chemistry with flair.

People? Christ, there was a reason he worked with the dead.

“I don’t want you to forgive me, Max,” Morse was looking at him again and he realized very late that he was also touching him. Morse’s hand was on his arm, sliding gently down to cup his elbow, “Because I know I’ve hurt you and there’s no forgiving that.”

“Morse,” Max found he had gripped him back, his hand lifted and turned and closed onto Morse’s forearm, “It sounds very much like you’re about to say goodbye.”

“Well I did say I was leaving-” Morse smirked momentarily.

“You know what I mean,” He hoped, for once, that this was sheerly Morse’s own sense of drama. His operatic sensibilities. For once, he would be relieved to know that this was all just being overblown.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I just have to go,” Morse’s hand released from his elbow and instead smoothed down Max’s arm until he could hold his hand, “So I just wanted you to know before I was gone. That you were right, you’re always right, and that I never stopped caring. I just run because it's too different. Because this is nothing like the life I always fantasized for myself -”

Max’s heart was in his throat. He sounded like a soldier going off to die.

“I love you. I’ve loved you longer than I ever admitted to. I’ve loved you even through all the others- and it’s terrifying.”

Max, for once, was truly robbed of words. He was never uncomfortable with silence but this one felt immense. His insides churned, his face felt like it was on fire, and as he clutched Morse’s hand in his own he stepped forward and kissed him.

Morse seemed surprised for only a second before his free arm slid around Max’s waist and he returned it. This was both the disease and the cure. The pair of them together could be messy and careless, lacking in good communication, but with so much understood with so little effort. It was comfortable and complete. Everything about being with Morse, even with all the frustration and hurt, was right even when it was wrong.

When they parted they were still clutching hands and their breath came in visible soft clouds between them until Max settled back on his heels again. He turned his head to the sky and realized that flurries were coming down, white flakes drifting like feathers in the air to settle in Morse’s hair and the shoulders of his dark coat and catch on his pale lashes.

“Max-”

Max squeezed his hand to interrupt him before he released him. He took another step back. He could feel it in his chest, every step he took away tugged and ached at the center of his sternum like a bit of rubber band pulling and pulling and pulling until it may snap.

He, strangely, thought of something Hemingway had said. _I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye - that was the trouble - I wanted to kiss you goodnight - and there’s a lot of difference._

“Just come back, Morse,” Max sunk his hands into his coat pockets, pushed them deep until he could feel the fabric tugging tightly on his shoulders, pulling snug around his body like a safety blanket, “You don’t have to come back _to me_. But you do have to come back.”

Morse swallowed visibly and let out a soft, shaking breath that steadied after a moment. He nodded.

He would. At least he believed it. And if Max had nothing, he had faith in Morse’s determination and his unwavering aim.

He’d come back, worse for wear maybe, but he would. It was the nature of things. Unknown factors aside, it was cause and effect with Morse as much as anything else… but also, maybe, a bit of a miracle as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't really have the energy to get strict about timeline so take it for what it is I guess lol  
> It may not be exact to the show timeline but close enough.
> 
> I do know that Christmas 1970 was a white one though.


	4. W I N T E R

“Debryn.”

_‘Max.’_

Morse. Tinny over the phone line, but it was him.

Max’s heart jumped into his throat.

_‘It’s Morse. Sorry about the time…’_

He sounded tired.

He must be home.

“You’re alright,” It was barely gone nine and Max had just finished dinner and some chores, after work. He wasn’t even out of his waistcoat yet, “You’re home…?”

_‘Yes,’_ he paused, _‘I’m back.’_

The hairs on his neck prickled. There was something in Morse’s voice. Despite the relief at knowing he’d returned, there was a wave of inexplicable sadness that washed over Max.

“I am glad to hear it,” He meant it but hesitated on the next question, “Everything sorted?”

Morse’s breath shivered with an audible exhale, _‘Yes.’_

“Do you need anything?” Max almost hated the bit of himself that desperately wanted to hear a yes, that Morse _did_ need him. Now. For anything. A stitch up. A meal. Something more. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been waiting for this call until it came. Like a breath being held since that kiss in the garden at Christmas. “Tomorrow I can come round. I’ll toss a meal together for us. You’re probably lacking in the grocery department.”

_‘You’re right,’_ There was a momentary smile in his voice. That was something, but the pleased sound died gently, _‘I’ll ring you then.’_

In Morse terms, that wasn’t exactly a commitment. Max was familiar with the tone, and he understood, of course, still...

“Good. I’ll wait to hear from you.”

Morse paused again and something was held there wordlessly. Max wondered if there was more he wanted to say.

_‘Goodnight, Max.’_

No, nothing more.

“Goodnight.”

* * *

Not twenty minutes later Max pulled into the drive of Morse’s house with a bag of food packed up in the passenger seat and his kit on the floor in the back; an afterthought. Just as there was very little planning for this visit, there was equally little stealth as his tires crunched over the gravel and his headlights flashed across the front of the house to announce his arrival. He wondered if this was what Morse felt when he showed up to people’s homes unannounced, the nervous tremor in his gut that he couldn’t ignore, being pushed forward against his better judgement until he was just _there_ , outside in the biting winter night with yesterday’s dinner, a bottle of alcohol and no good excuse.

Max disembarked with no attempt to stifle the noise, though every crunch and click and metallic car sound felt like it boomed in his ears in the still of the evening. He fetched what he’d brought; the food came with him, but after a moment’s pause, the kit stayed.

He noticed that the paint on the front door had been touched up. That unflinching crimson. Danger. STOP. Max had suggested something different when Morse had first bought the place. He'd offered they strip it down and give it a coat of something calmer, a mellow green or a nice dark stain on the natural wood, but Morse had said he’d liked it. That it caught the eye.

_‘The house with the red door,’_ He’d said with that half-cocked smile of his, _‘Has a bit of a ring to it.’_

Max lifted his hand and knocked.

Once upon a time, he’d been familiar with the house, overly so, but it had been about a year since he'd considered himself freely welcome there. Some of their mutual acquaintances knew of their staccato relationship. People like Jim Strange who only seemed glad that someone competent was looking after Morse and knew well enough to not discuss it further. It had been Jim, in fact, who had helped him move Morse in. Morse who had been stubborn about help of any kind, intent to do as much as he could on his own, until Jim had gotten him the phone numbers of electricians and plumbers when the fixer-upper turned into more fixing than Morse was capable of. Morse had mumbled miserably about not wanting to be in it up to his neck with The Lodge, but he was far more frugal than he was cautious, and in the end his wallet won out.

Would Max’s comfort here remain, like Morse’s ease in his own cottage? He wondered how far the place had come along since then. How much of Morse's distant year had been spent on the plumbing or the walls? There had been coving he wanted replaced and a guest bedroom he'd wanted carpeted. This house had been his object of permanence. His act of stability. The pair of them had laid on a threadbare blanket in the front room while the walls were still covered in obscenities and the floor still smelled like the heavy duty cleaning solvent they’d used to scrub it down. They drank cheap wine and talked about paint colours and gutters needing to be reaffixed and a yard outside that could eventually become a garden. Morse had told Max that he wanted him to be able to come and go there as he pleased, that he wanted him to view it as his own space too. He said he wanted it to be a second home.

What had happened?

As quickly as it flashed across his mind, so did the reality that he had no idea what had gone on in the house since. Who had visited? Had anyone helped him with all his personal repair projects? Had he even bothered pursuing them? Who had stayed the night? Who used the new sets of towels they’d purchased together because Morse only had a single old grimy one? Who ate off the brand new plates and cutlery they’d filled the cabinets with because Morse had moved in with only a couple of tea cups, a few beer glasses and a single fork, knife and bowl? Who, in his stead, had become overly familiar with the house in the ways that he wasn’t anymore?

The thoughts settled sour in Max’s gut and he very nearly spun on his heel and fled, but to dwell on those thoughts was a path of misery. He was a better man than his base instincts, better than jealousy and bitterness. His childhood had been plagued with envy for people with different lives than his own and somewhere along the line he’d grown used to being set apart, to rejecting the status quo, to knowing that nothing in his personal life would ever be easy. When you were _other_ it was often hard not to wish once or twice to be anyone, or anything else. Max would always fight those thoughts and squash those demons, because he refused to be shamed for his existence or for the person he’d become.

Besides, the status quo was horrifically boring.

When the front door finally cracked open, Morse didn’t look wholly surprised to see him. There was a tinge of relief in his tired twitch of a smile that allayed several of Max’s fears, and while he didn’t say anything at all when he moved to let Max through, as soon as he was inside, Morse closed the door securely behind him and locked it. The sound of the bolt clicking was like the answer to a question that hadn’t been asked.

He’d be staying.

But there was silence through the house that was unnerving and it was more than Morse’s own lack of speech. That steel and vigor he’d seen in Morse at Christmas was gone. Whatever had happened in the last few weeks seemed to sap something from him and Max knew immediately that he was right to have come over.

"I thought, perhaps, you may need to be bullied into eating," Max spoke first as he tried to pinpoint what was so odd about the still silence of the place. And then it came to him, huge and glaring and obvious: there was no music playing. Morse lived within a sphere of music. He filled his air with it. He never knew truer emotion than he did with his favorite records. Even while working, while sitting about the house doing a crossword, or something so simple as chores, Morse always had something in his head that he was humming aloud or tapping out on the nearest surface. With no music whatsoever it was even harder for Max to pinpoint the other man's current emotional state. In a way, between Morse’s silence and this stranger of a house, it was a bit uncomfortable for Max to feel so out of his depth. Perhaps too much time had passed. Perhaps this time around, there was change in Morse that Max couldn’t be a part of.

"You’re welcome to try," Morse shrugged with another twitch of lips. He was in his socks, in shirtsleeves and proper trousers, but his shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest and there was a smear of cigarette ash on his vest. The amount of hardlined creases in his clothing told Max that he’d been laying in one place for a while. Yes, Max was an investigator of sorts himself, and when it came to human bodies not moving for long periods of time, he was what some may call an expert.

Morse detoured to the front room as Max paused to take off his coat, hang it on a hook, and give the place a glance. The walls were done rather neatly, if not a bit drab for his own tastes, and the room still seemed bare with minimal furnishings. That beaten up chair of his was still there (now with a companion), a desk, his record player (still and silent) and his LP's. Of course there was a drinks cabinet, but nought else. An ashtray on the floor right beside his phone, pulled away from the wall as far as the cord would allow, alluded to Morse still preferring the floor as a seat to anything with four legs, and there was that same threadbare blanket again with a bottle of whiskey and a stack of papers beside. Morse rejoined him with a smouldering cigarette between his lips and Max finally tore his eyes away from the room to pass beyond, down the quiet narrow hallway and into the kitchen.

It wasn’t a very big room, barely any counter space to speak of, so Max set the bag down on the table and produced the whiskey first. All of his sense as a doctor told him this was a bad idea and his sense as a friend agreed, but as as a man with an ache in his heart who was not above embracing his foolish impulses for an evening, he’d already made the decision.

Max waggled the bottle and tilted his head, “The rose coloured glasses of life.”

Morse took a drag from the cigarette pinched between his fingertips and managed another small smile, “No beer?”

“This lot's better than what you usually drink, _M’Lord_.”

Morse chuckled and it warmed something in Max. It was reassuring.

Morse took the bottle from his hands and fetched them both glasses. At least the dishes were clean, though as the cabinet opened Max noted more wine glasses than the last time he was here.

“This lasagna is from last night. It’ll need to be warmed over,” Max continued to unpack. He withdrew the first foil covered rectangular dish, “The chicken can be eaten cold and there’s some bread and veg and potatoes and such. Assorted miscellany.”

Morse poured them each a glass as the series of oddly shaped containers and foil packets were set down on the tabletop. His eyes rose and lingered on Max, pulled down his face, his collar, down to his hands and then finally the food.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” He took another hard pull of his cigarette before he put it out inside of the whiskey lid without thinking.

Max didn’t have the energy to say that he did. That he couldn’t quite have dealt with his conscience if he hadn’t. That if he hadn’t seen Morse’s face tonight, for whatever reason, he might have gone mad. Now that he was here, had Morse not an arm's length away, he really found that he had no regrets about it either.

“I’ve got my kit in the car,” Max admitted with a small smirk, “Couldn’t be sure you weren’t holding yourself together with a wing and a prayer and didn’t want to tell me.”

Morse actually laughed softly, “I said I’d call you tomorrow.”

“Yes. Obviously, so I would find your corpse before it started to stink.”

Morse smiled and it never failed to make his insides bloom with warmth. Morse’s smiles were like private gifts and Max actually had to look away a moment as he accepted the drink. With no other words, a second later, they clinked their glasses softly together and each took a sip.

Morse reached for the food and pulled over the foil package that had been identified as chicken just as he settled himself into a chair. He peeled a corner open so he could pick a cold bit out with his fingers and take a bite and Max left him to it. The rest was taken to the refrigerator and then Max washed his hands out of habit and cracked the kitchen window as Morse continued to eat. The kitschy little curtains that Max had hung when Morse first moved in still remained and it was nice to see a piece of himself still here, mixed in with all the homely things. Despite the winter cold, the blast of air from outside was sobering and fresh. Max could just see the tops of the scraggly hydrangeas, the buds from the last year still clinging to the bush in dead bunches. They would need to be pruned if he wanted a good bloom in the coming year.

“So,” Morse had picked a drumstick clean by the time Max turned to hear him speak. Maybe the food had helped or maybe he was forcing conversation. Either way it was a good break to the strange silence, “Is this a house call then? You came to check I wasn’t dying?”

Max’s anxiety had ebbed but another swirl of feeling made itself known. He approached the table, reached for his glass again, and took a warming sip, “You sounded like you could do with company.”

Morse watched him carefully as he pushed the foil back over the chicken.

“And it felt wrong to leave you alone.”

Morse’s eyes dropped to the tabletop, to his hands, to the glass he rotated slowly between his fingers, and when Max approached to fetch the food and put it away with the rest, he didn’t get far. Morse caught Max’s wrist to stop him, his fingers curled around his arm, and as he tugged him close, his hand slid up his arm and circled around his waist. Without rising from his seat and without saying another word, Morse rested his head against the warm curve of the doctor’s waist and closed his eyes.

Max’s heart stuck in his throat. He remembered that summer morning months ago when Morse had sat at his kitchen table and looked across at him with accusing eyes. He’d been so done with the other man’s shit then. So over his predictably unpredictable life drama, so tired of being conveniently there for him all the time, but also resigned to it.

And all he’d really wanted was this.

Because Morse wasn’t wholly the problem. He was as well.

Even with full awareness of himself, of Morse, even after this entire year, nothing _really_ felt like it had changed between them. Not in the way they operated together, their feelings; not really. This moment, for all of the emotion bubbling under the surface, didn’t feel like a grand revelation nor a desperate plea for forgiveness. It was just comfort and care.

This just _was_ them.

Yes, Max’s heart jumped to have Morse reach for him, but there had never been a time when it hadn’t. Yes, Morse made him promises, but they weren’t ever necessarily broken. Could there really be indiscretion when no boundaries were set? Could there be lapses, drops in an ocean of time, moments in the span of years, if there had never been a discussion of what they meant together and what they wanted from one another? They could never have had a normal relationship, they both knew that, and who was the authority to even say what normal was?

Max had needs of his own, physical, emotional and intellectual, and he realized now that somewhere in Morse’s need for him, he was satisfied as well. Maybe he was a fixer. Maybe Max, despite his own good sense, enjoyed having something he could work to hold together. He needed Morse too. Wanted him. He loved him, no matter what, and after all this time it would take more than Morse’s frequently misguided decisions to change that.

Morse would have absolutely _no_ friends if everyone held him up to that sort of standard.

Max curled his arm around Morse's shoulders, rested a hand in his hair and brushed his fingers through the mussed bronze waves. This was all he’d wanted to do since the summer. Since _last_ Christmas. Since Morse had said he was taking a trip to Venice for the holidays a year before. All Max really ever wanted, to hold him, keep him close, and know for all his complications that Morse wanted - needed - loved him too.

Morse relaxed under his touch, turned his face into Max’s stomach, and let out a deep and satisfied sigh.

“Maybe you _do_ know me too well," Morse murmured, "Thank you.”

* * *

Max woke up cold.

Of course it was deep winter and he was laying _on top_ of a duvet instead of under it and his shirt seemed to have disappeared so he was only wearing a vest. His shoulders prickled with the chill and he could feel his braces digging into his soft spots where they attached to his completely intact trousers.

Right.

They'd passed out in their clothes.

Max tried to convince himself to slip back off for a few more minutes of snooze when the mattress shifted beside him and two lean arms snaked around his waist and pulled him close. There was the feel of a warm forehead being pressed between his shoulder blades as he was hugged tight, and it was a very physical reminder of where, exactly, he had ended up last night.

It wasn’t even light outside yet and Max could hear the twittering of birds. His mouth was dry and tacky, the world blurred and indistinct without his glasses, and yes fine, he _should_ just close his eyes again because waking up meant dealing with _all of that_ and more. The silence of the morning was pleasant, a contrast to the unease he'd felt arriving at Morse’s very silent home the evening before. It was nice, despite the chill morning air, to lean into the warmth at his back and be held, even if it was increasingly uncomfortable by the second because he was still fully dressed and with increasing awareness that every seam and crease of his clothing currently dug into his skin.

A snorkeling sound came from behind his back after a few moments, the sort of noise that grated in the peaceful quiet, the very familiar sound of Morse snoring with his head at an awkward angle and his face pressed against Max’s back. There was a warm wave of affection, of deeply ingrained domesticity and familiarity, and then his body took over and told him to get himself together because he needed the loo.

Experience also taught him that Morse would be drooling any second.

Max smoothed his hands along Morse's arms, peeled them delicately from around his waist, and gently rubbed his thumbs over the backs of his hands before he rolled away and finally sat up. He found his glasses on the mostly empty bedside table and slipped them on as he pulled his braces back up over his shoulders. Apparently the white blob on the floor nearby was his shirt, but that wasn’t really important at the moment. Max spared Morse a glance, watched him tuck his now empty arms in against his chest and curl in on himself as he shifted for more warmth. Morse was more clothed than he was and looked equally uncomfortable. The only naked bits of him were his feet which rubbed together and kicked lamely at a blanket that was just out of reach at the foot of the bed. Morse rubbed his face into the pillow and scrunched his nose in frustration, but didn’t visibly awaken.

Max scratched a hand through his own hair and waited for the dawning of his consciousness to bring more acute emotions than this lovely quiet and affectionate haze. He waited for the cold grip of realization, some notion that he’d made a mistake, some panic that he’d come here in the first place because he must be doing himself a disservice of some kind.

He waited for the regret.

It certainly hadn’t come the night before. They’d gotten half way into the bottle of whiskey when Morse finally loosened up enough to give him the grand tour of what he’d done in the house in the last year. The painting, some area rugs, and that guest bedroom that was barely even touched.

The bottle was three-quarters empty when Max finally asked him about the lack of music.

“Taking a break from opera, I think,” Morse had said as he lit a cigarette in the moment. He’d sunk into his battered arm chair and exhaled his first hit with a deep sigh.

“There’s more music in the world than opera, old boy,” Max had moved past Morse and run a hand through the man’s hair and Morse had tilted his head towards it as his eyes closed. Max turned on the radio, and by sheer circumstance, found The Supremes playing with minimal tuning.

Max sat himself at Morse’s feet and poured them each another drink, and the last thing he remembered before the alcohol induced blank spot took over was Morse’s fingers sifting through his hair this time, and how right it felt, and that eventually the song ended and slid seamlessly into Shirley Bassey.

Max now sat on the edge of the bed with the winter morning nipping at his bare shoulders and the sound of the heating finally clunking through the radiators. His toes were getting cold and near to numb even with his stocking feet, and he continued to wait for that bite to soak in deeper. He waited for it to sink into his core, for him to be chilled by his decisions and feel empty from his crumbling willpower.

But it didn’t happen.

Instead there was a placid and quiet peace, and when he glanced at Morse again (drooling onto the duvet, bless him, where did his pillow go?), all he felt was warmth… and love.

Max shuffled to the loo and back and by the time he returned Morse had begun to stir. By the time he sat back on his side of the bed the other man was peering at him through barely open eyes, and when he laid down, once more on top of the duvet, Morse rolled towards him and tucked his head against his shoulder and gripped onto his arm like it was a beloved old teddy.

The urge to kiss him fluttered through naturally, with an ease like breathing, and Max realized that they hadn’t yet. Not since Christmas. Not in the whole drunken evening had they crossed that particular physical line that others found so much meaning in. They had fallen into their normal comfortable routine with only a few touches of affection, with talking, yes - drinking - but with Morse that was always a given. It became so obvious, so quickly, that they didn’t quite know how to be any other way. Max realized that a kiss was so small a gesture in the grand scheme of what they were to one another, that he didn’t question it. He adjusted his head on his pillow, pulled up the knit blanket from where it was kicked into a wad at their feet, and after he pulled it over the both of them he turned his head to press his lips to the corner of Morse’s mouth.

It got him a smile, a sleepy one, and any vestiges of the pensive gravity of the night before seemed to be gone. There was no more waiting for the hammer to fall. Because, Max realized, _there was no hammer._

“Are we doing that again?” Morse murmured in a sleep rough voice.

“Had we really ever stopped?” The answer was yes in the most obvious and literal sense, but given more than a second of thought, neither of them could say anything between them had really ever halted. The feelings didn't. There was no breakup of any kind. Just sort of a pause and then, as usual, they just picked up where they left off.

Morse lifted his head an inch or so and gave Max a proper kiss in response. For all his stubbornness, he always embraced his feelings in the moment and Max was sure he didn’t know any other way to be. It seemed to invigorate both of them, faces warming anew and bodies shifting with fresh energy towards one another. Morse’s hand rested against Max’s cheek to tilt his face more fully toward the embrace, and when they did finally break apart with a soft sigh each, Morse murmured, “Easy as that?”

Max snorted and bumped their noses together warmly, “Of course not. You’re a shit, Morse. An absolute shit. And with you nothing is easy.”

Morse shouldn’t have laughed, but he did, and Max shouldn’t have smiled either, but here he was chuckling and grinning and readjusting so Morse could settle back in and fit into the crook of his arm. It turned out his pillow had been tucked between his knees, so it was fished out and reset for some added comfort.

“So what now?” Morse yawned. His arm rested across Max’s stomach which he used as a hold to pull himself even tighter to his side.

“Fry up, I think,” Max perked at the thought of a nice breakfast, “Some water. A shower.”

“That’s not what I meant…” Morse propped himself up this time, regardless of just laying flat a second ago. He leaned over Max’s face and looked down at him. His cheeks were pink and he had the seam of his own elbow bend imprinted across face. His bronze curls stuck out every which way and Max found himself more infinitely charmed than he already was.

“You can’t just forgive me, easy as that.”

“I don’t,” Max said plainly, “But you don’t want forgiveness either, do you? Not _really_. Because you think you don’t deserve it. It’s all platitudes, Morse, and you once made it very clear that you don’t approve of that sort of thing.”

Morse frowned.

“It wouldn’t change anything. It’s all already happened. You’ve had others before. And I have also.”

Morse’s brows raised a moment. Max had a few flings in the years since this started. There was a notable liaison with an art restorer for a week or two while he and Morse were fitting the occasional tumble into their late nights. It hadn’t been _a thing_ until Morse had shown up at his door one morning for some case questions and seen the fellow having breakfast in a dressing gown. Apparently, they’d been up at Oxford together and Morse wasn’t particularly fond of him. Max, when all was said and done, wasn't that fond of him either, but it was rather funny in retrospect, even if Morse hadn't been amused.

Max looked at him seriously, “You haven’t even told me what happened yet, Morse. Though I get the impression that once again maybe you did more hurting of yourself than anyone else.”

Morse averted his eyes and laid himself back down again. The silence, that creeping deep quiet from the evening before, felt like it was lurking in the distance and could at any moment creep back in.

Max decided to just continue. He’d have a one sided conversation if he had to, because inevitably he’d say something that would stir Morse’s blood enough for a response. It wasn’t like they were going anywhere, “I think you have a bone deep need to piss people off. If you make them angry enough, they will be the one to come and set you straight. It’s easier to let others whip you into shape than it is to do it yourself.”

Max smirked a bit when he heard Morse cluck and hiss in disapproval of the opinion.

“Most apologies are hollow when you've put in minimal effort or announced no intention of changing your behavior,” Max yawned.

“I _am_ sorry-”

He wasn’t lying. Max could hear it in his soft desperation. Morse was rubbish at lying. It was why he could only be evasive at the best of times. His lies were often glaring and obvious, or something he announced himself before it dragged too long. Morse was an all-or-nothing type and in most of his shattered relationships it generally came back around to _lying_. Because lying, to Morse, was the ultimate sin. It turned out that even being a criminal wasn’t really a turnoff. Just the lying about it.

Max wondered if it was lying this time around that had broken the camel's back as well.

“Yes, I know you are. And if there is a next time, you’ll be sorry then as well. And I’ll be angry and a little hurt as always-” Max took a deep breath, “Or maybe it’ll be me the next time. Maybe I’ll go off on one of my trips and you’ll be the one left behind for a few months. We’re adults and we have our own lives, and we both know that having one together - like other people do - isn’t in the cards for us.”

Morse sighed and Max could practically hear his eyes roll in his head, “Don’t talk about the ‘next time’ as if such a sure thing. As if I can’t possibly stop being-”

“You. You being you.”

Morse sighed again. This time it was softer and aimless. Wondering. “Am I a fool, Max? To hope I could have a normal life.”

Max shrugged, he’d wanted that once, that well advertised normal life, that illustrated billboard with the picket fence and the dog. Except for the bit with the kids and wife, he’d ruled that out at a young age. But that reality, that caricature of what adult life was _supposed_ to be, it was just that. It was a brochure, a fantasy. The ‘normal’ life plastered in ads and commercials and lining their streets was just propaganda to keep people going.

“Is that what you really want though? I don’t think it's foolish to want companionship, Morse, to want love and care, but you _aren’t_ a normal person. You don’t have a normal mind or a normal job, you don't even keep regular hours. I’m certainly not any of those things either. No one is, really, without sacrificing something else. You have to see that. In our work we witness it every day, that the happy ending is all a show, that everyone has something off about them and it’s all about finding a way to make it work,” Max rolled a bit, turned to Morse and put a hand on his hip under the blanket, “I don’t think people like you or I, with strong principles and ideals and specific desires in our lives, can ever really fit the mold like other people. Frankly, my dear, I wouldn’t want to.”

Morse looked a bit like a child finding out Santa wasn't real but had already really known it. His eyes shaded and he glanced away.

“You hardly carry yourself like a man who wants a wife and a picket fence, Morse. You? With your lofty literature and expensive drink? Your pristine collections. Your thirst for culture. You, having the smallest modicum of respect for anyone with an ounce less intelligence than yourself? Telling you what to do in your own home? Having a woman around who may want a bit more in her life than working her needs around yours and ironing your shirts and servicing you in the evenings and sending you off to work with a kiss on the head and a sack lunch? Let’s be frank, your romanticism sets you back several decades where courting and marriage is concerned.”

Morse flipped a hand out to whack Max lightly in the side, “Oi!”

But when he looked at Max with offense, he could only huff because Max was smiling and clearly winding him up.

Max rolled more fully onto his side and Morse moved to match him. Even in their uncomfortable clothes they fit close and snug, arms around each other’s waists and legs tucked together in well known angles. Facing one another on the pillows their noses nearly touched and the conversation volume dropped to a near whisper.

“When you first kissed me ages ago, did you think I was going to be your wife?” Max’s brows raised inquisitively.

Morse chuckled a bit at the idea, “No, of course not.”

“Did you think I was just some quick shag?”

“No, of course not!” Morse huffed and squeezed him. He tilted his head, “There’s nothing quick about you, Max.”

It was Max’s turn to pinch him.

It had always been rather magnetic between them, physical, but he and Morse both knew there was something more there than there ever had been with anyone else. It was just difficult to navigate. It was a bumpy road. And they were both horrifically stubborn.

“So we both knew this would never be normal. There aren’t rules for it. No book. No postcard image.”

“I know. I couldn’t imagine trying to..” he searched for a word, “normalize you.”

Max wanted to shake him. Wanted ask why, what was so wrong about him? What was so difficult about them just having this? But instead he let Morse continue.

“Letting go of things is difficult. Even if they are stupidly conventional ideas,” Morse finally said, after a moment, “To think someone may… want to do those things for me. Pick me and noone else forever. Til death do us part and all that. Throw yourself all in for someone else. Maybe I could change for them or- You know. Swear before God and-”

" _God_." Max actually snorted.

“You know what I mean. It doesn’t need to be marriage. Just knowing it’s you and only you. And I would see them and know - yes this is it for me. I don’t have to look anywhere else anymore. I have this person and the world can see it too.”

Morse went silent again.

“You’re always so eager to find a different life, but you don’t have to, Morse,” Max rested a hand on Morse’s cheek and drew their foreheads together. In barely above a whisper he murmured with a little tease, “ _God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.._ ”

Morse rolled his eyes a bit.

“Oh, come now, it’s not without merit,” Max chuckled, “Change what you can and accept what you can’t. There is always love to be had, Morse. You _have_ love in a thousand forms in your life.”

“Then why do I always feel like there should be more?” Morse murmured back.

“I can’t answer that for you,” Max took a breath and paused. It was beginning to feel like he was talking too much. It was too early to get frustrated with this man and he also knew it was unfair to be irritated at all. Not everyone was as self possessed as he was. Morse seemed to learn more of himself day by day, interaction by interaction, mistake by mistake.

Max sighed, “The grass is always greener, probably.”

They shifted apart and the previous heat of the embrace cooled a little. The warm flush of their kiss, the embers of physicality that had crept in, edged off. It was probably for the best. Max realized more and more that Morse had been through something, something that had affected him deeply, and maybe - just maybe - it had changed him in subtle and unknown ways.

When Max turned to look at him, he found Morse drumming his fingers on his own stomach and staring at the ceiling. He was clearly mulling it all over himself. They’d both spent the evening drinking, suppressing whatever thing it was that had thrown the year into mayhem. Morse had extricated himself from whatever catastrophe he’d probably barely escaped, and now had to return to the softly crawling pace of Oxford winter. Of police work and pubs. Of banal crime until the next puzzle hit.

Morse blinked and turned his head towards Max after another silence. His hand moved to find Max’s in the bedding and sifted their fingers together, tangled them, and clasped tightly. When Max met eyes, Morse smiled small, “You’ve always done alright at yelling at me in my own space.”

“Now that,” Max smiled back, “You always deserve.”

“And kissing me on the head and sending me off with a sack lunch.”

Max actually laughed, “I’ve never made you a sack lunch once.”

“Well,” Morse’s brows raised, “You ought to give it a try.”

Max lifted his head, tugged his pillow out, and hit Morse with it in one smooth move. Morse made a surprised sound and flung his arm up to block just a second too late. His laughter was muffled through the thing until Max finally pulled it away.

Max leaned over Morse now, propped up on one elbow, “And you’ve always been rather good at servicing me in the evenings but who’s keeping count?”

Morse looked annoyed and amused in equal measure. He turned a very particular shade of pink and that heat flooded them both once more.

“But I do rather like you like this,” Max finally said, “Trouble and all. We all like a bad boy, don’t we?”

That made Morse smile again against his will, with a sort of amused disbelief, “And that’d be me would it? An absolute delinquent?”

“Home wrecker.”

“Maybe, that,” Morse agreed with a one-shoulder shrug.

Morse had never liked simple answers, and as the sunlight finally began to break through the windows, Max knew that with jokes and cheeky flirting aside, nothing had truly been settled. The bottom line, the simple truth, would always remain unshakeable: that nothing with them would ever be simple. There was no guideline for this. No map. No pretty shiny blueprint on how to build a life, but they could figure it out as they went along, just as they always had.

“I won’t be your wife though, Morse,” Max said more seriously, “Or your mum. I have always respected your needs and my own as well but-”

“I need to make it up to you,” Morse said in interruption.

“No-” Max paused, put up a hand, “- well, yes. You are not exactly footloose and fancy free but that’s not where I was going with this.”

Morse seemed to sense that perhaps the time for laying about in bed having heart to hearts was coming to an end. He stretched his arms up above his head and bent his elbows a bit. Each leg stretched out and there was a series of gentle pops that sounded somewhere in his spine. When he finished, he propped himself up and waited for Max’s conclusion.

“We’re going to talk,” Max said, taking Morse’s chin gently in his fingers, “You’re going to tell me everything - about Italy and this year. The case. What went on with Thursday. All of it.”

Morse silently nodded.

“And it’s only going to be open communication from now on. Even if it hurts,” It always would, that was just a small part of what love was, “- honesty is of the utmost importance.”

Morse nodded again.

“And if you can’t, Morse,” Max sounded graver than he had all morning, “If honesty is beyond you. If the prospect of hurting one another is too daunting for either of us, then we won’t do this anymore. I promise you, Morse. I will never try to change you into something you are not, but I will not allow myself to be abused - or abuse in turn.”

Opening himself up had always been difficult for Max but he’d somehow made an exception for this man. Not wholly, never wholly, because to expose his deepest sensitivities was to invite himself to ruin. He only asked now, that the exceptions he’d always made for Morse become a bit more mutual.

“I do love you,” Morse said after another short stretch of silence.

“I know.”

“I probably don’t deserve any of this.”

Max smirked and tilted his head, “Maybe. Maybe not.”

Morse shoved him lightly with a hand, “Prat. You’re supposed to say you love me back.”

Max grabbed him and smirked as he trapped Morse’s arms in his own strong grip. He pulled him close and pressed his lips to the underside of his jaw, and Morse surrendered to it, tilting his head for the affection and closing his eyes.

  
“ _If I loved you any less, I could talk about it more.._.” Max murmured before nipping the skin softly. He could feel Morse’s body stir where it pressed against him.

He thought momentarily that if he possibly loved Morse and more than he did, if he was heart shatteringly complete in his love, if his love could overrule and defy the logic of his mind, all of this would be impossible to handle. The jealousy. The hurt. And even the forgiveness.

It put things into perspective.

Morse made an eager sound in his arms and shifted his legs, tried to latch onto Max and explore where this embrace could go, but the doctor chuckled and very cruelly pulled away.

“None of that. Shower. Breakfast. Change of clothes,” He ran his tongue over his own teeth, “A bit of dental hygiene.”

Morse sighed and reluctantly agreed, “My mouth tastes foul.”

“And you,” It was Max’s turn to stretch and he finally sat up straight, pulled the blanket from him, and put his feet on the floor, “will be cooking.”

He peered back at Morse over the top of his glasses, “I like your bacon better than mine.”

“It’s all about the crispy bits,” Morse yawned.

Maybe this would all happen again. Maybe it would happen a dozen times. Maybe it would be Max next time. Maybe Morse. Maybe they'd have a row over something stupid and finally give it all up. Or maybe no one would misstep for years.The future would always be unknown. There had always been a sense of urgency, of danger, of something off kilter when the pair of them got too deep into their own feelings, but it never had stopped them.

This bump in the road would remain that. A bump. It did not make a road impassable. It just was a chink in the mechanism, a hiccup, and at both of their cores Max and Morse would always be the sort of people who preferred to fix things than to just let them die. Just as Max himself had learned that he could still have a house and a garden, a picket fence and a family of his own choosing and a picturesque life that he made with his own two hands, Morse was slowly making his way towards finding those things that he wanted as well, one little bit at a time. They could make their own rules, define their own boundaries, and have something that didn’t lock them in and make them feel like they were trapped.

Max felt Morse move up behind his back again. He realized he’d been staring off into the morning light in silence and Morse’s chin hooking over his shoulder shook him from it. Morse rested a hand on top of Max’s and traced the shape of it delicately, mapping the familiar terrain, compensating with touch what couldn’t expressly be said in words. For verbose men there often seemed to be a frustration and difficulty with talking about their emotions that always translated better into caresses and touches and physical gestures.

Max turned his face towards Morse’s and was met with a kiss to his jaw. So simple a thing, a kiss, but also sometimes it could be everything.

“You’ve still got clothes here in your drawer,” Morse murmured, “And a dressing gown.”

“Do I?” To think that Morse kept him a drawer, that was something else.

“Course,” Morse hummed, “And one of your ties you left. Red with silver dots?”

“I was looking for that one,” Max mused.

“Mystery solved,” Morse said as he finally slipped away.

Max turned his head to watch Morse rise from the bed and stretch. He effortlessly dropped out of his trousers and shed his half-buttoned shirt, and Max admired him move about the bedroom with ease as he went to the wardrobe and pulled Max’s dressing gown out for him to lay on the bed. Max was wondering now, if what he’d done and said was right. If it had been anyone else he’d have told them that Morse was trouble, that such a thing was a mistake, fool me once shame on me, fool me twice -

Sense told him one thing, but his heart sang something entirely different.

He loved him. For all his mistakes. For all the pain. His dramatic fits, his sharp edges, his hypocrisies and sensitivities. Morse managed to be stubborn at the same time as he was admirably adaptive. He felt more deeply than nearly anyone Max had ever met, yet bounced back with an effort and focus and grace he’d never witnessed the equal of. He was passionate and flighty and unflinchingly true all in a single breath.

Morse picked up a towel from a chair, held it to his nose and sniffed. There was something nearly comical in it, this serious and emotional grown man wandering about in his underclothes like he was still some uni lad with a hangover unsure which of his laundry was clean.

He was absolutely ridiculous and a bit foolish and brilliant and unique and Max loved him with his entire heart.

And he smiled as Morse finally left the bedroom, towel in arm, and headed for the shower because he realized that his silence was broken.

The music was back. Morse was humming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from an Oscar Wilde quote that I kept pasted in my WIP doc. From his 50,000 word prison letter, _De Profundis_. 
> 
> "What is said, however, by myself or by others, matters little. The important thing, the thing that lies before me, the thing that I have to do, if the brief remainder of my days is not to be maimed, marred, and incomplete, is to absorb into my nature all that has been done to me, to make it part of me, to accept it without complaint, fear, or reluctance. The supreme vice is shallowness. Whatever is realised is right."
> 
> \--  
> This was a bit of labour of love for me. I had issues with this season (and it had nothing to do with my ship lol) but also having some personal issues for months now. I'm very pleased to finish it.  
> I know perhaps it's not as happy and whole of an ending as some other things - as my husband says MAX DESERVES BETTER - but not every relationship is complete and whole and happy without some work... and all the best ones are very unconventional. Thanks for tagging along!


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